Speaking doctors

Saturday passes away with cooking. Spaghetti qeema and salad with loads of greenery.  My younger brother has three servings and I can see spaghetti coming from his ears. A touch of imagination. ہمسفر نہ رہآ ہمسفر We have the PTCL smart three in one. But it’s a three or none. It decides to turn on and off on its own. So over my long weekend there is no internet wifi connection , TV and landline phone. We are left with the slow cellphone wifi. We chat and chat among ourselves till our mouths hurt and our heads ache. And it was the last episode of ‘Humsafar ’ yesterday. I can predict the ending. Fareeda khala will turn mad, the threesome will live happily ever after and Sara will die. “Woh  PTCL tha magar us kee service na thee, Kay dhoop chaon ka alam tha…”   The Misbah touch Our nation has a virtue. They continue to poke and provoke anyone with patience and then the one with patience eventually decides to erupt.Here comes the volcano. Its high time the nation accept...

Nineteen days of the month done with. The city holds a jalsa on women empowerment and women dance away to show how powerful they are. After a glorious test comes the exam and our team tumbles. The way our wickets topple down is amazing. The way they make runs is just that amazing.Fours, sixes. Every big hit bores my brothers no end. And then the heated discussion that this is not the one day team that we should play with. On my way to private wing while in the lift, a lady starts talking to me. “You work here don’t you?”, she asks. I nod and smile back. “I hope you could notify something to your administration”, she goes on. I wrinkle my eyebrows in question. “ The café’ its too far away. They should build a café near the private wing”, she concluded. I gave her a long explanation about how we have clean food despite the fact that the café’ is far. She did not agree. One of those who just want to be heard, I ponder shrugging my shoulders and walk away.

Its one of those blessed days called ‘long weekend’. Friday was a little tough or maybe just that, tough. But then it was tough for the whole of Pakistan I guess. Our cricket team stumbled at a score of ninety nine. That upset our Pakistani men no end. “Our team always does that”, they say. “But then just the other day our team caused the opposing team to be all out at seventy and remember how excited  we were! ”, I oppose. Of course they don’t like my views. Little do I care. Coming back to my tough day and  as I  think back  it seems that it was rather fun. I told that to Sumaira (our year two) and she didn’t agree. Having smooth rounds always is no fun. There should be some speed breakers. The Baba solution On coming back home I try to find some solution to improve. “Instead of just doing a fellowship in oncology, I feel that I am running some administrative job”, I discuss with my father. “Administration is fun!”, my father smiles away. “But it’s a little toug...

Its nine pm and the traffic on the way is practically stuck. Its been a long day. Our round started at eight and we were done by ten. Post rounds as I sat in the D2 computer room one of the interns said, " Ma’am can I ask you your name?". "Its Zarka", I replied. "Ma’am, you know you have the perfect pitch of voice and I am sure you can sing well!". Obviously I was smiling cheek to cheek. And then he continued, "Try singing 'kahay satay aaja, piya basanti ray' . You’ll leave Shreya Ghoshal behind!".

Young lady (?? at least at heart), cycle one day 14 of oncological therapy. Was sent home on Friday evening (and again very late), for two days rest at home. Her family however decided to drag her to interior Sindh for that long awaited trip. Eight hours of travel. No joke. Currently readmitted on Monday morning at eight am (as usual), she looks rather disoriented. On exam : Slightly tachycardic as the most important round takes place today. The rest of the systemic exam unremarkable. Labs: Results still pending.  (As this was an elective admission and the nursing staff took her sweet time cannulating her and collecting her samples). Treatment: Depends on how she performs (in the rounds) today. Assessment and Plan : Continue same treatment as she shows some promising signs of improvement in the times to come.

    The new year strikes in fourty minutes. So when we write the date tomorrow, we'd write 2011 and then overwrite the eleven. Looking back, it has been an amazing year. January .   The first month of year three. I still remember how weird we had felt. Me, Ainee, Amber and the rest. The only one with a confident start was Anwar. Nothing can shake him. We were blessed with raw interns (who by the end of the year are shining like diamonds). Admissions, rush calls, leading a team. We sailed through and with Ainee along in private wing, we laughed away. Then there was the resident's appreciation evening. Those sarcastic skits. I read the news (this my continuous second year doing so). 'If I read the news in the next year's resident night you could call me Shaista Zaid then', I had said to  Dr Imran (cardiology). February Cardiology night float. Ecgs and more ecgs. March and April ICU rotation. A different world altogether.We celebrated passing A lines, centr...